Sins of the fathers and their big families
LAWALI Audu, a Nigerian teacher, is proud to have had “as many children as possible”. He has 18 with three wives.
He sees his large family as a contribution to society, and Audu hopes his children will give back to the community. But he also has a practical rationale: he believes his children guarantee him a comfortable future.
“When I get old, I know they will take care of me,” says Audu, who is in his mid-40s.
His is an extreme case, but such sentiments are common in Gusau, a city in the northwest Nigerian state of Zamfara, where the fertility rate is an average 8.4 children per woman. It highlights a pressing African issue: whether its population expansion will be a demographic dividend or a disaster.
Two years ago, the rapid growth of Africa’s population was touted as one of the attractions drawing investors and multinationals to the continent. With the number of Africans forecast to double to two billion by 2050, CEOs and economists talked up the potential of an aspirant, youthful populace wanting to open bank accounts, buy the latest smartphone and splurge on consumer goods.
But the fall in commodity prices and resulting economic slowdown in many countries has refocused attention on the risks associated with a swelling youthful population, which is jobless, trapped in poverty and frustrated.
“Our people are an asset but we have to have the wherewithal to invest in them — without that, it’s a tragedy,” says a Nigerian government minister who did not want to be named. “It’s frightening.”
Africa’s population is growing at 2.6%, while birth rates are slowing or stabilising in most parts of the world. But its economic growth has dipped to its lowest in more than two decades, with the World Bank forecasting GDP will expand by 1.6% this year.
“The doubling of the population in 30 years points to enormous challenges — for productivity, for food production, for health provision, for education,” says Kevin Watkins, head of Save the Children UK. “Governments are not rising to the challenge, either in terms of provisioning or in terms of accelerating the demographic transition [with policies to lower birth rates].”
Youth unemployment is widespread across the region, with many young people idle or in part-time work in the informal sector. The continent will have the world’s largest working-age population by 2034, according to McKinsey.
The consultant group said in a report last month African markets still had huge opportunities for growth driven by demography, in particular as the fastest-urbanising region.
“To benefit from this, African governments and the private sector urgently need to work together,” says Acha Leke, a director at McKinsey, adding that job creation will be critical. “Clear policies are needed to ensure that industrialisation takes off, that youth are equipped with the right skills to create the jobs needed and that entrepreneurs are enabled.”
In Nigeria, the continent’s most populous country, demographic pressures are already being felt as nearly 200 million people push the country’s rundown roads, schools and hospitals to breaking point.
The government plans to spend billions of dollars on infrastructure to boost growth but is struggling to fill an $11billion (R156-billion) budget gap with the country in recession.
In Gusau, barefoot children clutching begging bowls roam the streets fighting over scraps. But civil servants, subsistence farmers and professionals still see it as an obligation to have many children.
Yahya Abdullahi, a university economics professor, says most of his colleagues have large, polygamous families.
“They have their head in the sand about the impact of this,” he says.
Apart from the financial constraints, cultural norms hold sway in the conservative north, a predominantly Muslim region where poverty and high unemployment are cited as factors behind the rise of Boko Haram, the jihadist group.
In the poorest northern states, the fertility rate is twice that in more prosperous southern ones.
In Lagos, the commercial capital, the average is 4.1, less than half the average in Zamfara state, according to a 2013 US government-funded survey.
“People still do not see the connection between being poor and having four wives, 14 kids, and a limited plot of land and resources,” says Lamido Sanusi, emir of Kano in the north.
Maryam Ibrahim, a director at Zamfara state’s education board, says Islamic clerics in the north bear responsibility for not clarifying the precept that “God will provide”. “It does not mean that poor people should bring children into the world that they cannot feed,” she says. But it is a sensitive topic.
Abdul’aziz Abubakar Yari, governor of Zamfara, says to speak out in favour of smaller families would be “political suicide”. “I would be stoned,” he says. — © The Financial Times Limited 2016
Clear policies are needed to ensure that industrialisation takes off